


capture every minute

by sugarcubeshiro



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Being Walked In On, First Kiss, Gen, M/M, POV Krolia (Voltron), krolia: i'm really not gonna–, shiro: I DESERVE IT, shiro: do it. give me the shovel talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 12:58:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16873344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarcubeshiro/pseuds/sugarcubeshiro
Summary: It takes them going their first full three days without facing any threat of imminent doom, or getting washed over by bright-white flashbacks while stuck on the whale, before Krolia realizes that Keith doesn'tjust talkabout Shiro.Oh, no.Not in the way that Keith brings up everything else, the casual way he mentions a memory or describes a place. It’s not even in the same eager and wide-eyed way that Keith asks Krolia all the questions he’s been waiting to get some answers to.No.Keith doesn’t ’just talk’ about Shiro.Keith talks about Shiroalot.





	capture every minute

**Author's Note:**

> late to the party and this has probably been done a million times by now buuut i've been rewatching the show in preparation for s8 and got hit all over again with sadness over krolia and keith and their little family and everything that happened, needed something sweet, so here's my obligatory 'krolia's reaction to sheith' fic \o/

Krolia spends close to twenty years dreaming of one thing above all else before the universe finally grants her wish, and brings her son back to her. Making them meet, even galaxies far away from where she’d left him, as if by some miracle.

As if it was always meant to happen.

Although by human standards, Keith would be considered an adult by the time they reunite, Krolia wants nothing more than to be a mother to him. The one she never got a chance to be, no matter how much she’s longed for it, however much she’s mourned their lost years. She wants to hear everything Keith has—everything that he chooses—to share with her. She wants to listen to him talk until he has nothing more to say, wants to take care of him in ways that she hasn’t been able to since back when Keith was a tiny thing, bundled up in a bronze-coloured blanket out in the desert.

While their mission must be their main focus directly following their first meeting, and despite the uncertainty tainting their days when it all goes wrong, the two years that they get to spend alone on the back of a whale can’t be seen as anything but a blessing.

It’s a gift from the universe.

A little something to give back for all the time they’ve lost, and all the things that it’s forced Krolia to take away from Keith.

 

~

 

Krolia’s son is everything she could have dreamed of and more.

Keith is warm and open, soft and tender for someone with Galra blood, but it doesn’t take long before Krolia realizes that for a human, he’s considered closed off and cold.

After learning about what happened to his father— _her lover_ , Krolia’s own heart too soft and too tender for her body while she processes it all, as she has to sit and deal with that sudden knowledge—she realizes that Keith has been so lonely. Always stuck in-between, never fitting in with the ones around him. According to Keith, most people say that he doesn’t talk much, and it's made it hard for him to connect with anyone, even when he was a kid without too much anger for his body to contain.

Krolia doesn’t know if the reason that she can’t make sense of it is simply because every word out of Keith's mouth, anything he wants to tell her, will always be enough for her. Everything Keith says will always be something to treasure, and so much more than she ever let herself dream of hearing in the past. Even though she always hoped for it, of course. Her mind’s been constantly clinging to the ’ _one day’_ that she promised herself when she had to leave, her thoughts always finding their way back to the boy she’d left on Earth. The dark-haired and dimpled little human-looking baby, with fangs just a bit too sharp that Keith always used to bite down on anything he could get his hands on with a giggle—much to his father's startled concern.

Maybe it's the Galra parts of Keith and how they share the same biological language, deeply rooted in something no human could ever comprehend—but no.

Krolia can’t understand how people could ever see Keith as unfriendly.

Perhaps it’s simply how the second part of her miracle is this: after all these years, after all the loneliness and the questions that Keith’s been carrying around from not having his mother with him, Keith has missed her too. As much as Krolia has missed him, and even after everything, Keith does understand, and he does forgive her for what she had to do.

Either way, whatever the reason might be, around Krolia, Keith talks.

About his life, about Earth, and about his father. About the foster homes and his former school, and the students there. Keith talks about Voltron and his teammates, about joining the Blades, and about what growing up without her was like. In quiet, fragile moments, Keith tells Krolia that he still feels so lonely sometimes that he thinks he might break apart if someone as much as looks at him, and when it happens, Keith has to go and seek out solitude until it passes.

Keith talks about the head of Voltron, the Black Paladin—the man that Keith knew even before they set off into space. The human named Shiro.

At first Krolia is impressed by Shiro in the most general sense, drawn in by the bright, catching colors that Keith paints him with.

But it doesn’t take long before the details Keith lays out, along with the flashes of memories that fill in the remaining gaps, lead Krolia to another realization about Shiro. Because all of it makes a map that’s not difficult to trace, one that has Krolia feeling something much fiercer for the man in question: if it wasn’t for Shiro, Keith might not actually have been to the stars and beyond just yet.

If it wasn't for Shiro, Keith might’ve still been sitting alone at night, looking up at the blue-black darkness of a night sky, with a deep longing he could never place. 

And if it wasn’t for Shiro, maybe Krolia wouldn’t have had Keith back at her side.

The hurt of the  _what if_  tugs sharply in her, because now when she has him near, it’s so hard to imagine how she was ever able to go on. How she managed to live with the notion that she might never see Keith again. Even though Krolia knows that she did it, it’s still impossible for her to fathom how she spent so many years without him.

For being a part of what brought Keith to her, Krolia loves Shiro long before she’s even met him. 

And for everything that Shiro’s done for Keith, it's not hard for her to understand why Keith does, too.

 

~

 

It takes them going their first full three days without facing any threat of imminent doom, or getting washed over by bright-white flashbacks while stuck on the whale, before Krolia realizes that Keith doesn't _just talk_  about Shiro.

Oh, no.

Not in the way that Keith brings up everything else, the casual way he mentions a memory or describes a place. It’s not even in the same eager and wide-eyed way that Keith asks Krolia all the questions he’s been waiting to get some answers to.

No.

Keith doesn’t ’just talk’ about Shiro.

Keith talks about Shiro _a_   _lot_.

 

~

 

Two years spent alone together with no one else around is a long time.

It’d more than enough to get to know someone, even if you didn’t already share the bond of being their mother. And before they can return, Krolia knows her son well enough that she can confidently say, claiming that Keith talks about Shiro _a lot_ is still a vast understatement. A grave miscalculation on her part.

Because her son talks about Shiro  _every chance he gets_.

For two years straight, Keith will not stay quiet about the guy.

By the end of it all, even though she hasn’t even met him yet, Krolia knows everything about Shiro.

She knows the exact shade of colour of Shiro’s eyes, and that he gets a dimple in his right cheek when he smiles, and she could approximate his height. Krolia would know what to serve him at dinner if she wanted to make him his favourite food, and she could take Shiro down in a fight, simply by knowing the things that he's taught Keith.

While Keith hasn’t said it in as many words—and he wouldn’t, which is another thing she learns about her son: when Keith’s quiet, it’s not because he feels like he can’t talk to her, but because Keith is so much like Krolia herself with the way he shares his emotions, even when he’s not feeling guarded. Not necessarily closed-off and cold, but always careful with what he allows others to see—Krolia has also figured out that somewhere deep down, Keith hopes the jacket that he loved it when Shiro wore back on Earth—back when life was simpler and more complicated all at once for them—will still be left in one piece somehow. And more than anything, Keith hopes that Shiro would offer it to him, now when it could fit on Keith's shoulders.

Krolia knows it means something, to share these things between humans. Even though the gifts aren’t weapons meant to keep your loved one safe.

It means something, and it means something intimate.

For two years, Keith talks about Shiro until Krolia knows far more about Shiro than could ever be justified for why she would  _need_  to know. But really, Krolia thinks and tries not to smile to herself over her musings—the things her son tells her about Shiro, say so much more about Keith himself.

 

~

 

As a mother, now when she’s finally able to  _be_  a mother, Krolia welcomes every little thing that Keith is going through with open arms.

She’s determined to stand right there next to him as he faces it, whenever Keith needs her.

There’s still a war to fight, a long endless battle in front of them that they can’t lose sight of if they want a future. Krolia knows that she can’t give too many promises, from fear of being forced to break them, but there is _so much_ she’s already missed when it comes to Keith’s life. So much she can’t undo, so many moments she can’t go back to and be there for. She will do anything in her power to make sure that there won’t be any more important moments added to the overgrown pile of it than absolutely needed.

It’s her biggest wish, and something that she promised herself all the way back when she first had to leave Keith.

So while Krolia stands with the rest of the people she’s now traveling with, gathered in a half-circle around Shiro’s healing pod to rejoice in his full recovery, she smiles wide.

Keith and Shiro might be holding each other tightly, embracing in a way that almost make everyone else in the room feel vaguely uncomfortable—as if something sacred is being intruded upon—but warmth still spreads in Krolia’s chest at the sight of them.

She’s happy to be here for it.

Whether there is more between them than the deep friendship that Keith has so stubbornly tried to claim is all there is, or not, Krolia is beyond thankful that Keith has this kind of close bond with someone in his life.

Really.

She is.

But when Krolia and everyone else get to witness as Keith not only starts to rub his hand above Shiro’s knee, before he slides his palm up Shiro’s thigh and  _squeezes_ —but also how Shiro's legs horrifically fall open just a little bit more in response to the touch, all while Shiro looks at Keith with too-dark, too-fond eyes...

For the first time in her life, the part of Krolia that has so unwaveringly told herself that she’s grateful for every little experience she gets to watch play out in Keith’s life now, starts to question whether she really does mean  _everything_.

 

~

 

In another life—maybe in the quiet one where they live out their days in the desert, with no wars to worry about, maybe Keith would come home one day and tell her about his first kiss.

If she closes her eyes, Krolia can almost picture it.

How Keith would try to act all casual about it, while still being far too light on his feet for it to work, gaze drifting off dreamily at the dinner table. Krolia would share a knowing look with Keith’s father, and both of them would fight back their smiles as they told Keith to invite the guy over for dinner, and this time not simply as a friend—because she can't imagine that they wouldn’t hang out all the time, Shiro probably a permanent fixture in Keith’s life even then. And Keith would blush, muttering about how embarrassing his parents are while they just kept teasing him, just a little bit, just for fun. Just because they could.

It’s a self-indulgent and silly daydream, something with no hope of ever coming true. Still, it’s a nice thought, and one that Krolia drifts off to sometimes, when things feel too heavy for her to remember what she’s fighting for. Finding a moment of peace in thinking of her little family, all back together on Earth, with nothing to worry about.

In reality, though, she’s crammed with her son in a sentient war machine the shape of a lion, which Keith is now the sole Paladin of, out in deep space and with not much place for privacy. Something that Krolia gets reminded of while she’s making her way from the bathroom, walking past the cargo hold and heading for the cockpit.

“ _Keith_ ,” Shiro’s voice comes low.

Krolia stops, confused. She was certain she would find her son in the pilot’s seat.

There’s a smaller storage room to the far left from the cargo hold, across from where they’ve set up the living quarters. It’s tucked away in the corner, and with place for nothing more than a single bed. Shiro uses it sometimes, whenever he needs a moment to himself, since the presence of people around him still overwhelms his senses too much at times.

Krolia wonders if Shiro’s been sleeping—if maybe he woke up from a nightmare and called out to her son in confusion.

She changes direction and walks closer, but pauses far away enough that she won’t be noticed just yet, even though she can still see Shiro’s profile clearly where he’s sitting up on the bed, since one of the two sliding doors to the small room is opened. Squinting her eyes, Krolia assesses Shiro’s face, but he doesn’t look tired, doesn’t seem the least groggy with sleep. Shiro has his arm outstretched, holding onto something behind the door that’s slid shut.

Krolia lifts one eyebrow, and shifts slightly so she’s standing behind a tower of some crates that are stacked on top of each other, certain that she can’t be seen at this angle from where Shiro’s sitting.

She’s not exactly  _hiding_ , but—she’s definitely not going to get spotted.

Shiro’s arm gives a gentle tug, and the next thing Krolia sees, is her son stumbling into view in the doorway. Keith trips a little over his own feet before he catches himself, straightening up and moving to stand in the space Shiro’s made for him between his thighs.

While Krolia can admit that she wouldn’t mind peeking a little to see what they’re up to, she does not mean to pry on her son. Really. She doesn't. She just wanted to see if Shiro needed some help; if he had one of his rare moments of being too disoriented for it to be fair to have left him alone, and she would have need to go get Keith, to see if he could ground him.

Yet the soft sight in front of her catches Krolia off guard, and she finds herself staying still as she takes it all in.

Seeing them cuddled up close is hardly unusual at this point, but it’s still different this way, when it’s just the two of them. Krolia smiles fondly, finding the fact that she should move, give the two of them the privacy that they think they’re having, slip away to the back of her mind for the moment.

A part of her had assumed that their embraces couldn't get more intimate than what everyone’s already witnessed—whether people want to or not—but clearly, she was wrong.

“Yep?” Keith says as Shiro slides his hand up Keith’s back, and leans his whole upper body against Keith’s chest. Keith moves his own hands to the back of Shiro’s head, carding his fingers through the short hair at his neck.

Shiro tilts his face up and tucks himself in to nuzzle at Keith’s throat, and Keith closes his eyes with a soft hum.

“Sorry,” Shiro mumbles a little sheepishly after a moment and pulls back, just enough to peek up at Keith. He doesn’t seem very sorry at all, though, his hand still stroking up and down the curve of Keith’s spine. “I guess I’ve—um. Missed touching more than I’d like to admit most of the time.”

“Oh?”

“Just—” Shiro clears his throat. “Being able to, uh. Feel other people, you know? In general, I mean.”

“It’s okay.” Keith moves his hands to cup Shiro’s jaw, and Shiro closes his eyes, tipping his head back while Keith smooths the pads of his thumbs soothingly across Shiro’s cheekbones. Still holding his face, Keith leans forward and rests their foreheads together. Shiro lets out a pleased little sigh at the contact. Keeping his eyes closed, there’s far too much emotion in Keith’s voice when he whispers, “You can touch me as much as you want.”

Shiro breathes out, and licks his lips when he pulls back, blinking his eyes open as he waits for Keith to look at him again too.

They’re still far too close for two friends—far too close even for two brothers-in-arms who would go, and have gone, to death's end and beyond for each other, and who trust the other with their own life, if there really is nothing but  _friendship_  between them.

“Keith?” Shiro says again, voice soft and awed as he tightens his hold around him.

“What?” Keith says, sounding slightly suspicious—or maybe confused—as he looks at Shiro.

Shiro breathes out the next words so low that Krolia just barely catches them.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to deal with how beautiful you are anymore.”

As unsurprising as it should be, it’s not what Krolia had expected to hear Shiro say.

Neither did Keith, judging by the way his fingers freeze in their movement where he’d gone back to scratching the nape of Shiro’s neck. His eyes widen in surprise, and there’s a long stretch of silence as they stare at each other, but neither of the men back down or pull away. Shiro simply keeps looking at Keith, all calm and honest and unwavering.

“That's—that’s, uh, how I've felt for years around you, too,” Keith finally rasps out in the small space between them. “So, you know, guess you learn to live with it? Kinda. Still hurts sometimes, though.”

Shiro’s breath shudders out of him, and he shakes his head. “Keith.”

“Yeah?” Keith whispers and Shiro shifts his hand up between Keith’s shoulder-blades, spreading his fingers there. Then he slowly slides his palm back down, as if the only way Shiro can make himself move it is if he makes sure to let himself skim it across the expanse of Keith’s body first, touching as much as possible of him on the way.

Finally dropping his hand, Shiro lifts it to cup Keith's cheek instead. Keith’s still holding Shiro's neck, the two of them completely wrapped up in each other by now.

Krolia should move. She knows she should have moved already, this quickly having turned into far too much for another pair of eyes that aren't the two of them. Maybe Keith and Shiro close together have always been too much for anyone else to witness, even at times when Shiro and Keith haven’t realized it themselves. But Krolia still finds herself frozen, unable to take a single step—terrified of disturbing the moment if she does, accidentally breaking through the tension between them.

Snooping or not, Krolia does feel fairly certain that her son would hate it if that happened even more.

“But I don't want us to have to learn to live with it,” Shiro says, his broad hand sliding from Keith’s jaw to hold his chin. “And I've never wanted you to hurt because of me.”

“Shiro, you—”

“What I _want_ ,” Shiro cuts Keith off, and thumbs under Keith's bottom lip, “is to kiss you.”

“ _Hmn_.” A small, choked noise leaves Keith, and his lips part slightly, his mouth falling open, as if in both an invitation and preparation.

“Can I?” Shiro whispers with a smile.

“No.” Keith closes his mouth again, closes his eyes, and swallows.

Everything stills for a moment, Shiro freezing where he’s sitting and Krolia’s own eyebrows lifting in both surprise and confusion. But as Keith flicks his gaze to somewhere on the floor instead, looking so sad all of a sudden, it all falls into place, starting to make sense to Krolia.

Even with Shiro’s hand still holding his face, Keith sounds so vulnerable when he says, “Not if that's something you've just been missing in general, too.”

“ _Keith_.”

Shiro has a way of saying her son’s name so gently, like the letters form something fragile Shiro knows that he has to hold onto with the most care in the world, to make sure it’s safe and protected and always knows how precious it is.

When Keith finally looks at him again, Shiro smiles wider, a kind of smile that Krolia has never seen him use for anyone else before.

She might not have known Shiro for too long in person, true. But despite there being a sharp bite and a snark to Shiro, something too cocky and confident about him for most people to know what to do with—one of the parts that make Krolia understand why he works so well with her son—Shiro is still a warm presence around most people, and he’s always generous with his smiles, for anyone who needs them.

No, Krolia might not have known him all that long, but she has already seen Shiro smile more often than not. Yet she has _never_ seen him look so open before, so loving and enamored—not even around Keith.

Not until now.

“I only want to kiss you,” Shiro says when Keith stays quiet and still, and gently nudges Keith’s cheek with his nose. “Keith. I love you.”

“Shiro—”

“I love you so much, Keith. I’m so, so sorry it took me so long to realize. Hey.” Shiro strokes a couple of strands of Keith’s hair back with his hand, and waits for Keith to look at him again. A long beat of silence passes between them before he smooths his thumb across Keith's cheek. “Keith. You’re the only one I ever want to kiss again for the rest of my life.”

Keith inhales sharply, clearly trying but failing to keep his composure, since his voice comes too high and too airy for it to work, showing how nervous and affected he really is.

“Then I told you,” Keith says, confident and shaky all at once. Krolia’s brave boy who is still so scared of daring around other people sometimes, so terrified by the possibility of being granted  _happiness_ —but something about Shiro seems to have always made Keith able to take the leap that he never could, or wanted to, with anyone else. “You can touch me as much as you want, Shiro.”

Always fiercely determined the second he’s decided to let himself go after something, Keith is the one who closes the distance between them. He crushes their lips together, but Shiro’s quick to catch up, tilting his chin to meet him.

Shiro’s back arches into Keith's touch as Keith draws him even closer, until they're pressed chest to chest, and Keith shuffles half a step forward, even though there’s barely any place to go further into Shiro’s hold. Still, Shiro circles his arm around Keith’s waist again to hold him tightly, while Keith’s hands on Shiro’s jaw slide around to his shoulders. The two of them get all tangled up as their mouths move together, the kiss long and longing and desperate, and it doesn’t end until they have no choice but to pull back for air.

At the wet smack of lips breaking apart, and the startled noise of two gasped breaths between Shiro and Keith, Krolia finally blinks herself out from where she’s been rooted to the spot.

Cheeks warming from what she’s ended up witnessing, she quickly makes herself hurry away. The last thing she catches sight of is the two of them moving in to capture each other’s mouths again, and then there’s a thud behind her as something hits the floor. Krolia leaves, completely unnoticed. Maybe that was something she never had to worry about to begin with, all things considered—given how the two of them only ever seem to have eyes for each other whenever they’re in the same room.

Once she’s far enough that she won’t seem suspicious if either of them shows up—although, Krolia suspects that they won’t for a while—she has to fight back a smile, and she presses one of her palms against her chest, curling it into a fist. Her heart feels too big for her own body with affection, as if she’s the one who’s just had her first kiss with a loved one all over again. Krolia’s memories flutter away to Keith’s father, of when he had one of his strong arms around her waist, and the way he’d cupped her face for the first time in front of the Blue Lion.

She has to take a moment to blink back the wetness in her eyes as she remembers, while thinking of Keith and what she knows he’s been waiting for, for so long, overcome with both joy and grief all at once.

Some things, even as a mother, Krolia might not need to be there for. But now when Keith has it in his life, she can’t wait to be. Whenever her son feels like sharing it with her.

 

~

 

Keith doesn’t tell her about the kiss, and Krolia tells herself that it’s okay. It doesn’t hurt.

It’s fine, it really is, and she does mean that.

Even if she wishes that Keith would come to her; bittersweet flashes of the equal parts exciting and embarrassing family dinner that never got to be that she’s made up in her mind skidding through her thoughts. But their life as it is now isn’t quiet, most of the time it can barely be considered happy, and Keith can take as much time as he wants for this. If Shiro loving him back in the way Keith has always wanted him to is something that Keith needs to treasure for himself for a while, and if the two of them need some time alone with the knowledge of how their relationship has changed—then that’s the least they can have, after everything they’ve been through.

So.

Krolia would have been absolutely fine with waiting them out. To keep pretending that no one’s catching onto their not-in-the-slightest subtle shy smiles directed at each other, and act like she isn’t noticing any of it.

In retrospect, she would have  _preferred_  waiting, even if it had taken them traveling all the way back to Earth before Keith told her, if it had been the only alternative to—well,  _this_.

There isn’t much privacy in the Black Lion, and they  _know_  that she’s around, somewhere, always. Krolia hadn’t even considered that this would be something that _she_  would have to be the one to look out for. Naïve, perhaps, given how both Shiro and Keith have been stuck in space for a long, long time. And for all of Shiro’s stoic façade, Krolia does know that he is still a young man, too, not much older than her son.

Not to mention that Krolia also remembers, clear as day, what the first months after getting together with Keith's father had been like for herself as well.

Maybe she should have expected to find them both in a state of undressed, like the sight before her right now.

Shiro’s pushed down flat on his back on the bed, with his chest bare while Keith straddles him, the back of his own undersuit zipped down to his hips. Shiro has his hand snaked inside the fabric even lower, very clearly grabbing, and, to her horror, squeezing a handful of Krolia’s son’s— _her beautiful baby boy’s,_  some primitive panicking parts of her motherly brain screeches—naked behind. Keith himself is pushing back into the touch, letting out a kind of groan that Krolia never, _ever_ wanted to hear from her own son.

She clears her throat, far too loudly and aggressively for it to sound even remotely like something natural coming out of her body, just to get them to stop. Unfortunately the damage has already been done, though, and now the sight of them like this will forever be burned into the back of Krolia’s eyelids, even if they both immediately freeze in their movements. Everything stills, and it feels like an eternity passes while Shiro removes his hand from where it’d been groping Keith—even though Shiro yanks it out from the back of the suit at the speed of a man that’s been badly burned.

Maybe, Krolia thinks and takes a deep breath while she looks up at the ceiling, in the quiet life, the one where she lives with her son and husband in a small shack out in the desert, something close to this would’ve happened too.

Despite it all, this situation actually adds another weird sense of _normalcy_ in the oddness of everything.

“Shiro,” Krolia finally says, and tries to sound as neutral as she can manage. The two men in front of her sit so still they might as well be frozen solid, and Krolia can’t help how thankful she is that at least she can’t see either of their faces from this angle.

Or the general front of their bodies.

The part of her brain that keeps on snarling—as if Keith isn’t an adult that she doesn’t need to protect and care for to such an extent anymore, as if Shiro isn’t someone that Krolia knows loves Keith, and who she knows that  _Keith_  loves, more than anyone else in this universe, someone Krolia couldn't be happier for Keith that he's found—tries so very hard not to think about  _why_  they’re sitting so still.

About what other kind of noises the tiniest movement could create to mortify them all, given the state Krolia has found them in.

She holds back a shudder, and says, “Once you two have composed yourselves a bit, I would like to have a word with you in the cockpit. Alone. And Keith, you—can just stay here.”

She doesn’t wait for an answer, and neither of them say anything. Krolia still swears she can hear the faintest ghost of a barely restrained laughter coming from Keith, though, right as the doors slide shut behind her. It’s followed by Shiro’s petrified, “ _Keith—_ ” which only purpose could possibly be to haunt her for the rest of her life.

Krolia spent close to twenty years waiting for a miracle, and it turns out that her son is a brat.

A  _horny_  brat, and maybe, she realizes, Keith didn’t at all keep from telling her about the change in their relationship because he was feeling  _bashful_. Maybe it wasn’t at all because Keith wanted to keep his happiness closely guarded to his own heart for a little while longer, before testing the waters and sharing with the world that he’s in love.

Maybe this has had nothing at all to do with being vulnerable.

Maybe Krolia’s sneaky little son simply didn't want to be forced to change an arrangement where Keith has been lucky enough he gets to spend his nights sleeping right next to his “ _best friend”_.

It’s so unsurprising and baffling all at once, Krolia has to bite the inside of her cheek. She can’t even decide whether she wants to laugh at it or be a  _mom_  about it and be mad at him while she crosses her arms and stares out of the eyes of the Black Lion where it’s going forward on autopilot. She thinks of Keith’s father, of what he would say, and how loud he would laugh. For a moment, Krolia laughs with him—the man she always carries with her in her heart, holding hands with his soul, even though they've been separated for good now.

It doesn’t take as long as she expected for Shiro to show up, although perhaps a bit longer than she would’ve preferred to wait.

“Krolia,” he says from behind her as he enters the cockpit, all prim and properly dressed again. “You wanted to see me.”

She turns around to face him fully, and watches Shiro where he stands as tense as a soldier on what they know will be their final mission. Looking so sure of how there’s no hope of getting out of this one alive, Shiro’s body is rigid with the solemn posture of a man who has bravely accepted his fate, because he was always more than willing to give his last breath for the greater good.

For Shiro, the ‘greater good’ in this case would be to have touched Keith’s ass with Krolia in the near vicinity—one desperate squeeze all he got before now heading towards his glorious downfall.

With all the seriousness of a man who has been through war, and died but still managed to live to tell the tale, Shiro faces her head-on with his jaw set and shoulders squared to attention.

He doesn’t look sorry.

Shiro did something he knew needed to be done, no matter the consequences following his actions.

Krolia can respect that kind of determination.

And still there’s something so bright and boyish cracking through Shiro’s battle-hardened exterior, an obvious kind of embarrassment that Shiro is trying—and failing—so hard to mask. It’s incredibly evident from how his face is a deep shade of crimson red. Krolia just barely manages to hold back a laugh at the whole situation, and she distracts herself by looking out the eyes of the Black Lion again. Then she hums, like she’s mulling things over.

“I love my son,” Krolia finally says and turns back to Shiro again. She quickly holds up a hand when Shiro opens his mouth, lest he falls to his knees to proclaim that so does  _he_ , because—well. Krolia  _knows._  “I respect him,” she continues. “I trust him. I’m not going to pretend I can show up in his life after all this time and start springing rules upon him, as if he’s a kid. I'm not going to stand here and threaten you not to hurt him, or something equally ludicrous, like we don’t both know that he can take care of himself. He’s far more capable and grown-up than that. He’s—Keith’s not a kid anymore.”

Krolia flicks her gaze to the floor. 

The thought hurts to acknowledge more than she had expected, no matter how proud she is of Keith. No matter how wonderful grown-up Keith is. It hurts, even though she knows that  _she_  was the one who left Keith as a baby, back when he wasn’t already a young man.

But for Krolia, maybe Keith will always be that tiny human-looking thing, bundled up in his bronze-colored blanket out in the desert—that same baby she's always longed for and wanted to come home to one day.

And maybe this is what parenthood would always be like. No matter how many years she got to have with Keith in the past or not, no matter what kind of life they got to live together. Not only realizing but also accepting, that for her, Keith will always,  _always_  be her baby boy.

Whether Keith has a blade in his hand to protect himself, or his boyfriend has a tongue down his throat and a hand shoved into the back of Keith’s pants.

It’s only natural to worry, to fuss over him with a mix of joy and something else—something that makes it feel as though Keith is slipping away from her again, simply by having a life of his own. And this is how it is, how it would always be, and that fact makes it simply another thing to be thankful for that she can experience nowadays.

“He’s, um—not a kid, no,” Shiro agrees, a little uncertain, when Krolia doesn’t continue.

Again, Krolia does her best not to chuckle. No, Keith isn’t a kid anymore, and the guy who just had a lapful of a half-naked Keith while making out with him a few moments earlier should know it better than anyone else.

“I’m happy you’re happy,” Krolia says. “Both of you.”

“Oh.” Shiro’s eyebrows go up before he ducks his head, unable to meet her eyes anymore, as a smile so stupid Shiro can’t contain it spreads on his face. It’s all amusing, and endearing, and a little pathetic all at once—but Keith is Keith, and Krolia’s son is the best person in the universe, so she understands. “I, uh—thank you,” Shiro says. “I’m very happy, too. We’re happy. We’re... really, really happy.”

Krolia’s lips quirk up in a small smile of her own, and this time she doesn’t bother trying to hide it.

Keith has already been through so much in his young life, and while she might not know too many details of Shiro’s history, Krolia knows that Shiro has, too. Everyone knows, of course—people know simply by looking at him, since parts of it are forever exposed to the world by the way that it’s changed Shiro’s body. But that doesn't mean everyone gets to  _know_. Shiro was the one person to get Keith out of so many dark places, and Krolia is glad if Keith can do the same now for someone he cares for so much.

Even so, she still gives Shiro a nod, and decides that that's enough pleasantries. Now it’s time to dive into the situation they're all facing from here on. Because Keith and Shiro are the kind of people to snuggle too intensely even as  _friends_ , comrades of thigh-grabbing in a room full of people all staring at them, and Krolia’s son is—apparently—the kind of guy that gets caught by his mom while he’s half-naked with his boyfriend, and  _laughs_  about it.

There are limits even for what Krolia will endure, no matter how many years her son might have spent believing that his mother had willingly abandoned him as a child, and no matter how many things that Krolia has to make up for.

“That being said,” Krolia says, “maybe it would be for the best if you spent the nights somewhere else from now on.” She watches as the flush creeps back onto Shiro’s face, all the way up to the soft round edges of his human ears. “For everyone’s sake. I’m sure Pidge wouldn't mind some company.”

“Yes, of course, sir,” Shiro hurries out. “I mean, ma’am. I mean—absolutely, I am _so_ sorry we really didn’t think anyone would—”

“Let’s—” Krolia holds up her hands again, shaking them a little to get him to stop talking.

It’s not as if there’s anything shameful about it in her eyes. The act of lust, be it combined with love or not, is hardly something embarrassing in itself. Not in the way that some humans try to twist it into, but that still doesn’t mean that Krolia wants to  _know_. She knows it’s different on Earth, their history tangled up in far more complicated politics around human behavior and sexuality—an extra layer added to it when it’s two men being together, if she’s not mistaken—than Krolia spent time on learning about for her to fully wrap her head around it.

For Galra, though, she finds it simple. Being intimate is something few of them take lightly, regardless of how casual the encounter itself may or may not be, because of how vulnerable it leaves you. It requires a great deal of trust to bare your throat and body to someone else, from a people who are both naturally guarded, and have been conditioned to be either weary and distrustful of—or outright hateful towards—others.

It might not be shameful, but for Krolia, it will always be a highly private thing.

She sighs, and says, “How about we agree not to talk about this again? Ever.”

“Great.” Shiro nods a little too frantically. “Yes. Thank you.”

Then he pauses, mouth opening and closing a few times while he shifts on the spot, and Krolia decides it’s time to cut him some slack and finally send him on his way.

“Well,” she says. “We should probably both—”

“Krolia?” Shiro interrupts her before she can finish that sentence.

“Yes, Shiro?” she says and lifts an eyebrow at him. Once again, Krolia finds herself amused as she takes in the nervous stance of someone so usually commanding and confident and seemingly in control.

“I just—” Shiro furrows his brows, trying to find his words. “I just wanted to say that I hope you know this is all new? Me and Keith. We never—I mean  _I_  never, back when I met him, it was  _never_  anything like that before he...”

“Oh.” Krolia blinks as Shiro fumbles through his stuttering before he trails off. Realizing what Shiro’s trying to say, her smile softens. That’s something that goes so fiercely against everything she knows about Shiro, Krolia would never even have considered worrying about it—but the fact that  _Shiro_  would be worried does align with what she knows about him.

Suddenly she can see Shiro’s mortification over whether Krolia approves or not as something more than just blushing embarrassment. Her heart melts a little more over this amusing and endearing and a little pathetic all at once, giant, muscled, marshmallow man that Keith has found for himself.

“I know that, Shiro,” she says gently. “I’ve seen Keith’s memories. I know how you met.”

“You have... seen his memories,” Shiro repeats slowly.

“Mhm,” Krolia hums. “Great story from our time in the Quantum Abyss. I bet Keith would be better at telling you all about it than me, though.”

“Ah—right.” Shiro nods and bites his bottom lip. “Okay. I mean, that's good. Because after we first met, when you said that I’ve raised—? I guess I thought that maybe you’d...” He pauses again, trailing off with a frown. “Well, anyway. I just hope you know that I've always wanted what's best for him.” Shiro watches her for a moment, hesitant, but his voice is dead serious when he says, “I will _always_ want what's best for him.”

“Shiro,” Krolia says again before she has to swallow, her throat feeling so thick all of a sudden. “I know. You don’t have to defend yourself to me. There is no need for that.”

Because the truth is, however Krolia might feel about it, Shiro has known Keith for a lot longer than she has by now.

In some ways, he still knows Keith better than she does.

Maybe Shiro always will.

While it’s not as if they’re fighting for the title of who loves Keith the most, Krolia can't help but wonder what Shiro thinks of  _her_. Shiro has seen firsthand what Keith was like back then, what it did to him to be parentless. How Keith was so closed-off from losing his father and thinking that not even his mother loved him, that Shiro was the only one who could even get through to Keith since he was so distrustful and lonely.

Krolia looks away again, in desperate need of a moment to gather herself.

Of  _course_  she knows that Shiro only wants what's best for Keith.

Trying to change the heavy feeling clouding her mind and bring them back on the right foot, where Shiro is the one embarrassed again—and maybe to save herself from some of Keith's wrath at being interrupted earlier, and because Shiro and Keith are in love and any happiness they get to have is a good thing—Krolia takes a deep breath, and clasps her hands together.

“Well,” she says, sounding too forcibly casual even to her own ears, even though she’s usually so good at keeping her cool. “I think I am going to go find Kosmo and see what everyone is up to in the Blue Lion. I’m sure Coran has something he wants to talk about. You know how long-winded he can get. It might take a while.” She gives Shiro a pointed look, pleased to see that whatever way he had been able to compose himself quickly slips away. His face goes red again, the scar across Shiro’s nose barely visible from how he blushes. Krolia intensifies her stare, just a little. “A long,  _long_  while. So why don't you guys... prepare. Give my best to Keith, and tell him I’ll see him later.” She pauses, barely holding back another shudder. “ _Much_  later.”

“We—ma’am, I can assure you that we’re really not going to—”

“Ap-ap-ap-ap!” Krolia holds up her hands again and takes a deep breath.

She really,  _really_  doesn’t want to know.

Giving Shiro one last long look, Krolia considers for a moment making her eyes flash dangerously as a final touch—but in the end she decides against it. Shiro already looks close to dying, and Krolia does know how strongly Keith feels about  _that_.

Instead she finally walks past Shiro while keeping her face blank, but has to bite her bottom lip as soon as she has her back to him to keep herself from snickering.

Once out of the cockpit, Krolia hangs her head, and laughs to herself as she goes to find Kosmo.

 

~

 

Krolia is happy to know all of Keith, and she used to dream about him sharing every little part of his life with her without restrictions, but no—some things a mother simply does not need to know.

The most important thing is simply this: Keith is back at her side, and he shares _most_ of his life with her, while the things that Keith does hold back from her are mostly for juvenile and sweet reasons.

And, the best thing of all, is that despite everything her boy has been through and the universe they all live in, Keith is alive and _happy_.

Krolia looks down at the cosmic wolf next to her, where he's wagging his fluffy tail in tune with Krolia's own bittersweetly happy heartbeat. Amidst war, and despite having lived a life spent fighting for a greater good, instead of staying near the things that Krolia wanted to hold close for herself—in some ways, she couldn’t be happier either.

Even after she’s had to deal with the sight of her baby boy—the tiny human-looking thing, who used to be so innocent and sweet, all bundled up in his bronze-colored blanket out in the desert—now being all grown up, in love and getting undressed on top of the man that Keith has chosen to share his life with.

Krolia snorts as she puts her hand on top of the wolf's soft head to leave Keith to his own devices, to let him be the adult it will always feel a mix of wonderful and hurtful to remember that Keith is now.

She smiles to herself, sighs, and then lets the wolf zap them away.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/sugarcubeshiro) ♥️


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